Makes two of us... When the words Czech, self-loading, experimental and 1920s all appear in the same sentence, I just click immediately... Even if it is 7 years later!
I like how I'm part of a group of maybe 50,000 people all unified by their academic love for the history and internal workings of firearms. I feel like - with the help of this channel and a lifetime of apprenticing in machine shops - I could actually make some nifty guns. Ian, you're a hero for explaining how this stuff works as well as you do. ♥
I hope this isn't too annoying to be bugged about but the place it was made in is called "Praha", also known as "Prague" in the anglosphere (and it's to this day the capital city of Czech Republic, as it was the capital of Czechoslovakia back then). "V Praze" which translates exactly to "in Prague" is a declension of the word - we change the last syllable of words depending on the context, like many other languages.
Wow! That bolt carrier layout is amazing. Compare this solution to all the tricks that are pulled in the Remington 7600, Browning BAR (the sporting rifle), HK SLB et.c. A lot of gas operated rifles with the piston below the barrel has the force transferred via plates on each side of the magazine, but it usually leads to a messy construction with tricky disassembly. This is just beautiful.
Man, the more of these videos I watch and the more I see of these early prototype mechanisms the more impressed I am with the machining. I have a decent workshop and such but figuring out how to mount and mill such cut-outs and curves etc to such standards would be really hard, a work of art in fact. Impressive stuff.
A tiny remark- "Praze" is a locative case of "Praha" (Prague), not a city on it's own. No big deal, it just sounded too funny when Ian said it :) And thanks for your vastly informative videos, I never suspected I would learn so much new things about Czechoslovakian small arms development!
I kind of noticed that the hammer strikes where the tilting bolt sits. since the firing pin is in the tilting part of the bolt, that means the hammer literally cannot fire the gun if it is not in battery. kind of a clever way to do that.
Looks like a very promising gun, of course i seem to say that about most Czech designs. When you compare what they were doing to in the late 20's to other nations offerings they really seem ahead of the curve to me. Also when i look at these Czech guns im a little mystified (well not really, mostly im just glad) that the Germans didn't make more use of them. P.S. Ian, you've been looking at a lot of prototypes, and also doing a lot of reliability testing yourself; what in your opinion made this gun unreliable? To my amateur eye, it looks like it should run pretty well.
That rifle is great. The design looks wonderfully simple and effective. It does not look too difficult to manufacture on a large scale. The only thing that would be easier is a stamp sheet metal weapon. The disassembly is about as simple as a disassembly can be. I love it. It is a shame it was not adopted by any major military and put into mass production.
The bolt carrier/assembly reminds me a lot of the Holek Automat (unsurprisingly) because of the shape of the bolt carrier, the tilting mechanism of the bolt, and the gas piston being basically part of the bolt carrier.
I wish CZ had more dealers in the US. I had to buy a CZ 527 online before I could shoulder one. Worth every penny!! 1/2 inch groups @ 100 yards out of a factory barreled .22 Hornet using hand-loaded custom COAL ammo.
ahhhhh new developmental semiauto video! amazing!! easily my favorite kind of forgotten weapon. gotta give it to the Czechs, they know how to design! thx Ian great stuff as always.
I've been waiting for this one! Always liked Czech-nology This is what I call a "Lotto gun," as in if I won the lottery this would be one of the first guns I'd buy
I love the prototypes. Very interesting. While I am not commenting on the overall value or function of the gun, it seems ahead of it's time (and the Garand) in terms of disassembly, and simplicity.
What's most interesting to me is that it looks like an overall simpler and better thought-through rifle than what was tried 10 years later with the ČZ-39, which seems in comparison like one fustercluck of ideas and parts that were thrown together, even though it came out of the same factory in Strakonice. One could think that Strakonice didn't know what to do and how to do it without Holek.
Wow very cool,.. didnt realize so many models were being tested. Looks like that would have been a relatively good rifle,.. even looks a little AR-ish in the way it hinges open...
Like some other commenters, I would be very curious to hear specifics on what reliability issues the rifle had, perhaps with some analysis of what may have caused them!
Thanks for another great vid. Sarco Inc is selling BM59 kits, that appears to be a garand clone, have you ever featured the BM59? That would seem to line up with the early semi auto service rifle theme. Also saw a german paratrooper rifle on a TV gun show, that was cool. Keep em coming.
the location is not Praza, "v Praze" means "in Prague". The A.S. marking stands for "akciová společnost" - "joint-stock company". The whole inscription reads "Czech Arms Factory, joint-stock company in Prague"
Looks like a solid, easy to service rifle. As with the ZH 29, one wonders why they didn't do that well? Honestly this looks light years ahead of it's contemporaries.
So Ian, You've mentioned that this rifle had some issues. Could you pls let us know just a bit of what was the main problem. Because other than cost, I can't tell what would prevent this rifle from being adopted (albeit with some simplifications, perhaps)
That bolt group looks like one out of an M240 machine gun. Very cool gun, seems to be well made I think they should have tried it out on the civilian market.
Ian. If you could plan a trip to a country to look at some old guns which one would you go to first? Random question haha. Czechoslovakia seems to have a lot of cool stuff from big manufacturers and smaller groups, i think you could make a wealth of videos there. Though Germany would be really cool too. We need to get you and Karl traveling.
I simply do not understand what was wrong with the rifle that it didn't get picked up as a service rifle. The design seems like genius for the day. Was there something that kept it from working well enough?
Ian are you gonna do a video about the Winchester model 1907 semi auto rifle? I heard quite a few made it into the trenches of the great war and even a selective fire version was made.
Ian there is a picture I spotted on Instagram with a dead Volkssturm soldier beside a gun that looks like a Breda modelo 30 but I doesn't look like the magazine is on it! Did they use modelo 30s in the volkssturm?
Clever design, but seems a bit complicated (ergo expensive). Question: In a relatively low rate of fire weapon like a semi-auto rifle (i.e. not a MG) why would a designer choose a tilting vs. rotating bolt design or vice-versa? Most modern rifles have rotating bolts but pistols (after the fashion of the 1911 and Glock I guess) are tilting bolt designs. The tiling bolt seems simpler/cheaper and perhaps more reliable (Glock vs. the AR's 8 itty-bitty locking lugs), so why aren't they more popular among rifles do you suppose? The idea seems to have been tried early in the semi-auto rifle's historical development but then almost completely abandoned after WWII. Your thoughts?
I believe the recurring problem with early successful auto loading rifles was that countries were interested in the concept of arming it's military with semi-auto rifles, but were not interested in actually paying for it. So every time a gun manufacturer brought a high quality gun, the politicians who decided would complain about the price and convince themselves war was not on the horizon. In the first world war it was the other way around, gun manufacturers brought crappy guns (at least for trench warfare), and the army accepted them.
I'm puzzled by the protrusion on the back of the ejection port, it looks like a clip guide yet the magazine seems to be double stack so I don't see how you could just shove bullets from a clip into it. is there a precursor to this rifle that used a clip that they could have reused parts to make the prototype?
@@BloPsy__ firearm designs in different countries are often related: ZH-29 and StG44, FG-42 and M60, Garand and AK... Not 100% but some distinct feature. ZB-26, ZH-29 were known in USSR in early 30s. Considering timeline of Soviet selfloaders' designs I believe Czechs had influenced greatly.
+Neil Rosh The 1913/16 A6 Meunier semi automatic french rifle used a smaller caliber than the 8mm that was in service at the time in the french army (and it was built in relatively high numbers and used with good success in WW1). Can't remember the exact caliber though I do not know if it would count as a sub caliber rifle really.
Great video, as usual. I noticed you dry-fired the gun, which you normally take care to avoid. Is there something in the mechanics of this gun that makes it a nonissue?
+Friso Holtkamp I think he usually only worries about dry-firing the really old/antique stuff, and especially anything that uses a rimfire cartridge (because if there's no cartridge, the firing pin slams against hardened metal). Something like that anyway. Would also be interested in knowing for sure too...
Would this rifle have been loaded with stripper clips, or by magazine change? I thought I saw clip guides on top, and the magazine doesn't look like a good candidate for quick changing.
Actually, they did. But those guns were used in smaller numbers - so you could see them in SS units etc - and they were quite popular in fact (submachine guns, machine guns, even rifles like vz.24)
its C Zed, not C zee. the other letter is a capital too. The rest of the world uses both capital letter , I've noticed its only americans that make the Z a lower case.
